


Failed Dream

by ElementalHero36



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Shingeki no Kyojin Chapter 137: Titans Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29854773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElementalHero36/pseuds/ElementalHero36
Summary: With no one else, Mikasa and Jean have to learn how to pick themselves and each other up.
Relationships: Mikasa Ackerman & Jean Kirstein, Mikasa Ackerman/Jean Kirstein
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	Failed Dream

The aftermath takes up their surroundings. It’s by sheer chance that they didn’t end up trampled through that entire time. The whole ground around them is barren. Jean can’t find the energy to sit up. His entire body aches and several places feel as if they may bust open, so many more feel as if they already have.  
Darkness threatens to overtake him once again but he has just enough consciousness left in him to realize that he isn’t alone. Half on top of him is Mikasa. He can’t see her eyes but he can faintly feel her breathing against him. He goes back under.  
The next time he comes to, it’s a lot darker. He opens his eyes as he realizes he’s no longer laying on the ground, but instead in a bed. The last thing he remembers is staring down the jaws of a titan, as his weapons fall from his grip. Then a warm body had rammed into him, he was flung out of its grip and just as quickly felt the wind whipping him as he was carried along in someone's grip in ODM Gear. The titans seemed to ignore them as he was carried off away from them. The last of the gas was used up and they propelled downward. The drop wasn’t long, but the air was knocked out of him anyways and he blacked out.  
He attempts to sit up, frantically looking around. It only takes a look to the side for him to ease back in. Mikasa is across the room also on a bed. Her eyes are open. If not for the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest, he’d worry she was dead. She stares blankly up at the ceiling.  
“How-” he says, unsure how to finish.  
He is met with only silence for several minutes.  
“Eren,” she says. He almost wants to snort. “Eren brought us.” His gaze shoots back to her. “I saw him.”  
He can’t find the words to reply to this. She doesn’t say anything else either, doesn’t turn to look at him, doesn’t readjust her position. She looks dead.

A year later, Jean isn’t sure if he’s doing anything right. Life moves on around them, but he doesn’t really see it.  
But looking at Mikasa, it’s obvious she sees even less. Her eyes are glazed over half the time. Everything she ever does is robotic. She moves only on reflex, on instinct. She goes to bed early, sleeps late. He tries to lend her books, tries to coax her into sparring with him, to help him cook, anything to get her moving.  
Once, he asks her if she wants to visit Eren.  
Her eyes shoot to his. For a second he thinks he sees a spark but it’s just as quickly extinguished, leaving her looking worse than before. She doesn't say a word.  
He hasn’t seen her cry. He hopes she has.

Years pass. Life moves on, even for the two of them. Mikasa finally begins doing other things. She reads. She leaves the house.  
Sometimes, still, there’s a look in her eyes that makes Jean worry she won’t come back.  
One day, she comes back with a look in her eyes. He doesn’t get the chance to decipher it before she is standing right in front of him. He tilts his head and opens his mouth. She learns forward, and her lips are on his.  
“Thank you,” she says and leaves the house once again.  
He’s left standing in the entryway to their living room, hands gone slack at his side. He stays rooted until he has to use the restroom. He stays in the living room until well into the next morning. Reluctantly, he goes into his bed and lays staring up at the ceiling in the darkness.  
The front door creaks open and then he hears footsteps coming down the hall and into his room. Mikasa stands next to his bed, looking down at him. He looks up at her, uncertainly.  
“Can I join you?”  
His throat feels dry. “U- um, yeah. Sure.”  
She moves the blanket off him and snuggles in against his chest. He freezes, doesn’t move a muscle for a long time. Eventually, he does move to wrap his arm around her frame- so much thinner even than it looks in the day, is she even eating?  
They don’t talk. But they don’t sleep either.  
As the morning sun rises, he opens his mouth. “I thought you left.”  
“I know. I didn’t- I didn’t mean to make you think that. I never was going to though.”  
“Are you sure?” he asks.  
“Where would I go?”  
He doesn’t reply to that. He doesn’t want to tell her his conclusion.  
Mikasa reaches over and takes his hand, squeezes it. “I wasn’t going to. I wouldn’t… I won’t leave you like that.” She stills for a moment. “I didn’t survive everything just to go out like that.”  
“Why do- No, nevermind…” Jean shakes his head. “I always wanted to live a safe life in the interior.”  
“Even that’s a failed dream. Can it be considered the interior without the walls?”  
Somehow, he laughs. Even she smiles back at that.

**Author's Note:**

> So this isn't how I think the series will end, or how I want it to end. Just a random thing I wanted to write with all these feelings over the series coming to a close.


End file.
